Menu
Hello! My name is Jennifer, a 41-year-old mother of 5 and a nurse. My husband and I have been married nearly 15 years.
Before I share my story, I’d like to share that I had never been on any medications other than Lexapro for mild depression and anxiety. I did not have heart problems or even high blood pressure.
December 9, 2023, was the beginning of a life changing event leading to the diagnosis of Coronary Artery Spasm, also known as Prinzmetal Angina.
This particular day started like any other, but when my husband asked me to help chop onions, I began to have chest pains to the left of my sternum. They radiated out to my jaw and my left arm. I thought I was having a heart attack, but these went away within a minute or two. Over the next few weeks, these events would happen mostly in the evening when relaxing.
Right before Christmas, they started waking me up in the middle of the night. I hadn’t gone to the ER because I knew unless I was having one of these episodes, they wouldn’t find anything. They continued to get stronger during this time. I did go to the ER finally the day after Christmas, with nothing found on a full workup. Three days after Christmas, one of these cardiac events caused me to lose consciousness in the bathroom and I was taken to the hospital via EMS. Again, nothing was found, and I was sent home with a higher dose of anxiety medications and advice to “Get your anxiety under control“.
Five days after Christmas, on the 30th of December 2023, these episodes turned deadly. As I was getting out of the bathtub, I felt that I needed my husband. The reason wasn’t clear to me, but I knew I needed help. The episode started like all the others – chest pressure followed by radiating chest pain, intense sweating, and shortness of breath. The only difference was that it lasted much longer. I laid on the floor next to the bed, afraid of falling. My husband sat next to me, and within a few moments, I went unresponsive. I had no heartbeat and wasn’t breathing. My husband immediately started chest compressions and told Siri to call 9-1-1. By the time EMS arrived, he had gotten my heartbeat back, along with the help from a neighbor who is a volunteer firefighter. I was immediately transported to the hospital, where I had another cardiac arrest. I sustained a liver laceration and several broken ribs (as expected) from CPR. I recovered well, and four days later was transferred to a larger hospital for further cardiac testing.
My cardiologist couldn’t do a cardiac catheterization due to the liver bleeding, so we opted for a stress test, and an angiogram of the heart. None of the tests showed anything. I was quite frustrated, and one of the residents later admitted he was going to start testing me for Munchausen. My cardiologist was a blessing, though. He was present at the first hospital where my 2nd arrest was and knew something wasn’t right. He discussed performing an electrophysiology study, with placement of an implanted loop monitor. This is a heart monitor that is implanted in the chest and stays for up to three years. I agreed to the procedure with the hopes of gaining some insight on why a 41-year-old would suddenly start having these issues and cardiac arrests.
I was placed under sedation and the study was performed. This study uses a wire that goes up through the groin to the heart, to test the electrical conduction system of the heart. Upon awaking in the OR at the end of the procedure, I quickly started complaining of lower abdominal pain. I was given something for pain and taken to recovery, but the pain kept getting worse. I had developed a pelvic bleed. My blood pressure started dropping but my heart rate stayed the same, until it didn’t. It started dropping, I started having crushing chest pain and my ST segment (part of the cardiac rhythm strip) was very elevated. After a series of medications, they brought my cardiologist back in and he reviewed all of the events. It was the anesthesiologist who asked, “What about coronary artery spasm?” The cardiologist had a light bulb moment! He immediately agreed and started me on a calcium channel blocker. He was doubly sure because I had no plaque or blockages on my angiogram, and the ST elevation went away once the chest pain was relieved.
It’s now been two months since I had my first arrest and I have learned a few things that still astound me about this disorder and how the body works. The first is amnesia. I don’t remember much of anything most of the day leading to my arrest. When I got copies of all of my medical records, I felt like I was reading someone else’s very interesting records! The second is that bystander CPR is integral to survival in these events, and I am blessed to have a husband who had been trained. If you have any sort of cardiac condition, I urge you to encourage your loved ones to take the course! The third thing is that almost nothing is known about the cause of Prinzmetal Angina. Since it mostly (not always) happens in women between 40 and 75, my theory is hormones.
I am going down multiple pathways to try to find my answers including hematology to find out why I bleed so freely but my iron and platelets are pretty elevated. I also visited a women’s hormone specialist who is helping me bridge the gap between progesterone and estrogen without using birth control or other hormones, as many of them have a blood thickening side effect. I will see Rheumatology to see if I have any auto-immune diseases that I am unaware of, as there may be some that can cause contraction of blood vessels. I hope to find not just a reason for mine, but perhaps give some hope to others that are as frustrated by this as I am. I also hope to find a doctor or doctors who are researching more on the reasons for MINOCA and CAS.
Learn all about the symptoms, causes and triggers of these heart conditions.
Input your search keywords and press Enter.